By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu

God willing and other things being equal, the creme de la creme of the Igbo nation will meet in the city of Owerri, the Imo State capital, on February 25, for a political summit.

The summit is convened by the Igbo National Council (INC).

The summit will celebrate the theme “Fostering Partnership for National Reintegration”, with the topic, “Igbo nation’s participation in the Nigerian political system: Challenges and Prospects”.

The summit will be chaired by His Excellency, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, while the keynote speaker is Prof Pat Utomi. The lead facilitator is Dr Austin Onuoha.

The convener of the summit, Igbo National Council is a grassroots-based membership organisation with the mandate of the emancipation of Igbo race. Its further mandate is the reengineering of the Igbo value system, the economy and the political culture.

The council which was established in 2012 is gearing towards strengthening the capacity of the Igbo nation to engage with the political actors in the Nigerian venture for active inclusiveness of the Igbo race in the Nigeria Project, and Africa at large.

INC’s vision is centred on the actualisation of the Igbo dream, and this will manifest through research, organisation and action.

There are counter arguments which tend to question the validity of summits, seminars and workshops in actualising the Igbo struggle. These arguments seek to validate their claims on the fact that there have been so many of these summits, seminars and workshops without corresponding results.

But if the ideals which the council is committed to are to be relied on, actualisation of the Igbo struggle on the platform of INC may not be far-fetched.

The ideals are strengthening the capacity of the critical mass of the people to engage in participatory democratic struggle to reposition the Igbo race to its rightful position in the comity of nations; promotion of human rights, as well as the advancement of democracy and social justice through the application of the principle of Consciousness, Organisation and Action (COA); building alliances and linkages with other organisations, movements, media, networks, parties, coalitions and individuals, which promote democracy, social justice and sustainable development geared towards the realisation of the Igbo dream.

Others are: standing shoulder-to-shoulder with individuals, groups, nationalities and revolutionaries fighting for self-determination anywhere in the world; supporting programmes of civic education and leadership development aimed at producing quality leaders with positive value system at every level of governance; and leading the self-sustenance, self-preservation and self-determination struggles of the Igbo race.

Furthermore, the group is to mobilise the people to protect, promote and defend the political, economic, safety and socio-cultural heritage of the Igbo race anywhere in the world.